Article by: Sara Pantaleo
Strategic plans are like a map to help you stay on track. They include an assessment of where you are now, your company’s vision and mission statements and goals to drive the company to success. The goals can be broken down into smaller milestones or tasks by the end date envisioned to ensure your business strategy is successful. The journey to a strategic plan begins by identifying where you are now.
Strategic planning is an essential part of any organisation.
No matter how big or small your business may be, there will always come a time when you need to think about where it’s going next.
This article will walk through how to get started developing one for your organisation, including what steps need to be taken to make sure everyone stays informed along the way!
Developing a Plan
It’s not enough to know where you’re going when developing your plan; your team must clearly understand the current state. This starts with understanding who they are and what makes them unique, but also includes asking questions like “What problems does this group solve for customers?” or “How do I see our success in terms of business goals?”. While these might seem simple on paper, collecting data from all stakeholders will help shape an accurate portrayal and identify opportunities missed at a high level. The critical data sources you should gather are; customer insights to learn about what customers want, employee feedback and SWOT analysis.
Once you have an accurate picture of your current situation, you can set some goals to improve and drive the organisation forward. When you’ve figured out your strategy, it’s time to put pen to paper. You’ll need a plan that is flexible enough for changing conditions but still has the outlines of what will happen at each stage.
Executing your Plan
Now that you have set up your plan, it’s time to execute it. This means clear communication across the entire organisation so everyone knows their responsibilities and how they can measure its success with key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs will help gauge which parts of this strategy work best for each business process to achieve optimum outcomes overall!
Review and Revise
Your strategic plan is a living, breathing document. It should be constantly reviewed to ensure you are responding to any market changes and updated as needed to ensure that you’re always staying on top of the game and taking the best possible steps for your company’s future growth!
Lastly, the most successful strategies are those that change and evolve with your company. As you achieve goals or the needs of your business shift over time—it might be worth creating a new plan to suit these changes!